No Impact Man: The Movie

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June 2008

June 16, 2008

The way I see it, reusable containers have the tremendous potential for helping companies develop a two-way relationship with customers.

Like Ronnybrook Farm, where I get milk. I buy from them because they're local and because they use returnable bottles. A quart of milk from them is $3.25 including a $1 deposit. You go back to return the bottle, you buy more milk.

Plus, buying their product makes you feel good and virtuous. They help you not to waste and throwaway. The value add to their product is feeling good about yourself.

This may seem trivial, until you realize that containers form some 40% New York City's residential waste stream. Think not only of the landfill space and the leached toxins, but the material and energy resources used for a product going straight to the landfill.

Throwaway containers are the devil.

So anyway, my friend John is in Missoula, Montana where there is a huge whole food retailer called the Good Food Store:

The Good Food Store is a non-profit corporation dedicated to
supporting a healthy community. We provide a wide selection of organic
food and natural products, conduct our business in an ethical and respectful manner and donate to organizations in need.

Look at the photos below (click on them to enlarge), courtesy of John, which show the Good Food Store's approach to container reuse.

First, they collect your used jars:

Then, they clean and sterilize the jars:

Then, they offer the empty jars to customers so that they can use them to buy their bulk wet food from fruit preserves to salad dressings (note the empty jars on the shelf on the left):

Cool, right? Not only does an old jar not enter the waste stream but a new one does not need to be manufactured. Now, tell the truth--and business people take note--don't you wish there was something like this in your community?

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 13, 2008

A while back I wrote a post called "When what's happening to gas happens to water," about how companies are buying up water rights and looking forward to the day when clean drinking water is sparse and the price goes through the roof.

I wrote, "You see, it's not just about the plastic bottles. It's not just about
the food miles. It's about the fundamental right of access to drinking
water. Are we willing for our children to have happen to them for water
what is happening to us for gas?"

Well, pictured here is T. Boone Pickens (courtesy of BusinessWeek), who hopes that is exactly what happens. He owns more water rights than any other individual in the United States.

BusinessWeek's Susan Berfield writes:

"If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D.
Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the
U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he
already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it
over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property.
The electricity generated by an enormous wind farm he is setting up in
the Panhandle would also flow along that corridor. As far as Pickens is
concerned, he could be selling wind, water, natural gas, or uranium;
it's all a matter of supply and demand. "There are people who will buy
the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to
sell it. That's the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing," he says.

"In the coming decades, as growing numbers of people live in urban
areas and climate change makes some regions much more prone to drought,
water—or what many are calling "blue gold"—will become an increasingly
scarce resource. By 2030 nearly half of the world's population will
inhabit areas with severe water stress, according to the Organization
for Economic Cooperation & Development. Pickens understands that.
And while Texas is unusually lax in its laws about pumping groundwater,
the rush to control water resources is gathering speed around the
planet. In Australia, now in the sixth year of a drought, brokers in
urban areas are buying up water rights from farmers. Rural residents
around the U.S. are trying to sell their land (and water) to multi-
national water bottlers like Nestlé (BW—Apr. 14).
Companies that use large quantities of the precious resource to run
their businesses are seeking to lock up water supplies. One is Royal
Dutch Shell, which is buying groundwater rights in Colorado as it
prepares to drill for oil in the shale deposits there."

Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 12, 2008

This is a photo, courtesy of the New York Times, of 100,000 South Koreans demonstrating in the streets of Seoul on Tuesday.

What is so important to them that they turn out in such vast numbers? Impending war? No. Massive unemployment? No. Rising energy prices? Not even.

They demonstrated over the safety of their hamburgers.

After a scare over mad cow disease in American beef imports, they are concerned that insufficient measures have been taken to ensure that future imports will be safe. I know this may be painful for the American beef industry, but my point here is that the protesters' numbers are so large and their will so strong that Korean President Lee's entire cabinet has offered to resign.

Democracies belong to their citizens. Around the world, citizens take to the streets when their governments defy their will. Not so much in the United States. Can we change that?

After all, when it comes to making safe the habitat we depend on from global warming, special interests may have money on their side. But we have the people. And all that it would take to get the work done is show our representatives that we care.

Climate change may presently rank about tenth in voter concerns. But the
League of Conservation Voters did a study that showed that, of 3,302
questions asked of the Presidential candidates by Sunday morning
talk-show hosts, only eight of those questions centered on global
warming (that's 0.2 percent, by the way).

I wonder how high on the
agenda global warming would go if the press actually covered it? I
believe there is more potential political will out there to do what's
necessary than we suspect.

So, in no particular order, we need to figure out how to ensure that the cost of climate change measures will not fall on those who can least afford it, how to get more press attention for the issue, and how to show our Government that we care about the future of our habitat at least as much, say, as the South Koreans care about their hamburgers.

PS By the way, I had a post about my 350 resolution on Grist yesterday. Click here to take a look.

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 11, 2008

You may remember that bicycling took the place of mechanized boxes as our choice of sustainable transportation during the No Impact project. In fact, we're still loving our bikes.

Anyway, once a year, Transportation Alternatives, which advocates taking the New York City streets from the cars and giving them to the people, runs its commuter challenge--bike vs. car vs. transit. Personally, I think they made the route unfairly challenging for the transit rider this year, but see for yourself (if you get this by email and can't see the video, click here to come watch it on the blog).

[Bad luck for us, because I just heard from StreetFilms, who made this video, that they are maintaining their site this morning (Wednesday, June 11). They say that it will be up and working by noon, though, so if you find you can't watch it now, watch it then.]

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 10, 2008

One privilege bestowed on me by writing this blog is the number of emails I get from all over the world, in general, and from people of different religions, in particular. I have a faith of a certain kind and I enjoy talking about the dependence of human health, happiness and security on the well-being of our planetary habitat within the context of faith.

Anyway.

The other day a Christian woman from Idaho named Katie did me the honor of engaging me in an email discussion about global warming. I say that she did me the honor because to some extent Katie disagrees with me on the global warming subject. She could have dismissed me and what I have to say and this blog out of hand but instead she cared enough about this world and her God and the Truth to engage me. That's why I say she did me the honor.

Now, I don't necessarily call myself a Christian. In fact, my particular type of brain seems to be most receptive to the experiences of God (or the Oneness or the Universe or the Mystery or Just Plain This) I have when practicing Zen Buddhist meditation. I receive that wavelength best. But when someone asks me if I'm Buddhist, I often say, "Yes, but I'm also a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu or just about any other religion you can think of."

I say that because I'm not interested in putting up a barrier in my conversations with anyone. The labels are divisive. My spiritual belief, really, is to do what is good and not do what is bad and to try to figure out how the hell to live life in the lane that squeezes very narrowly in between those two lines (and believe me, I'm mostly a failure).

The religions, to me, are different paths up the same mountain. I know some people of faith don't believe that all the paths are created equal, and that's okay for them. I'm just saying I think it's really fun to talk about getting up the mountain with people whose paths are different than mine.

I'm reading Kurt Vonnegut's latest, posthumously published book Armageddon in Retrospect. In it, Vonnegut talks about how he was a POW in Germany. One of his German guards had one cigarette left. The guard had just discovered that Allied bombs had just killed his wife, children and both parents. But he still shared his cigarette with Vonnegut, an enemy soldier.

I like that story because it acknowledges that we're all the same. And, also, it seems to me that, in more ways than one, there is just one cigarette left.

So the thing is, Katie agrees with me that stewardship of the planet is important. “We were put on this Earth to be good stewards of this beautiful, wonderful planet by God,” she wrote to me.

But she disagrees with me that manmade global warming could substantially harm the planet’s ecosystems and our ability to live on it. Katie wrote, "He [meaning God] promised never to send another flood--that polar ice will never melt and flood us again. His sovereignty will prevail--whether people believe in Him or not."

But there's a corny story about a guy in flood--slightly adapted here--and the guy stood on the roof of his house and prayed to God to save him. A man came by in a canoe, but the guy said, "No thanks, I have faith in God." A helicopter came, but the guy said, "No thanks, I have faith in God." And then the waters rose some more and the guy drowned.

He got to heaven and he said to God, "I waited for you but you never came! Was my faith in you misplaced?"

And God said, "I sent a canoe and a helicopter, but you didn't climb in. The real problem here was that my faith in you was misplaced."

So what worries me, metaphorically speaking, is that one day we could all be saying to God that he promised us there would be no more floods and that the polar caps would not melt and asking if we had we misplaced our faith in Him.

And he'll say, "I sent more than three thousand scientists to warn you to do something to stop it. The problem is not that you misplaced your faith in me but that I misplaced my faith in you."

And so, when Katie implies that we should trust God, I have no argument with her. But what we've yet to determine, in my view, when it comes to melting the ice caps and another flood, is whether God should trust us.

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 09, 2008

"[Right] whales are among the most endangered species on the planet, with
only about 300 of them still alive. But a measure aimed at protecting
them is snarled and stalled in bureaucracy."

"That measure is a proposal from U.S. government scientists to require
commercial ships to slow to 10 knots inside a 30-mile "bubble" near
ports where and when these whales are migrating."

"Right now, experts say, commercial ships kill about two North Atlantic right whales every year. 'We think that more animals are being killed than are being born, and
there are a couple of main sources of human-caused mortality that we
are trying to reduce,' said Jim Lecky, director of the Office of
Protected Resources at the National Marine Fisheries Service. 'Collisions with ships are the number one cause of mortality, and
entanglement in fishing gear is the number two cause,' Lecky said.

"Many in the shipping industry oppose the speed limit, saying it would
be too costly. A federal study concluded that slowing the ships near
the whales will cost shipping companies about $112 million, or less
than 1 percent of the $340 billion East Coast shipping industry income."

"Rep. Henry Waxman said the long, drawn-out process within the
office and Vice President Dick Cheney's office is demoralizing career
government scientists... Waxman said the Bush administration thinks the 'science shouldn't bind them. They're going to do what industry wants.'"

"CNN made several requests to speak with officials at the Office of
Management and Budget about the delay in action on the proposed rule.
The agency's Jane Lee issued this statement: 'We cannot comment at this
time on an ongoing rulemaking process... ' Members of Cheney's office said they do not comment on internal deliberations.

Photo shows a U.S. Coast Guard ship assisting in a 2005 attempt to disentangle a right whale from fishing gear.

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 06, 2008

OK. Not really. Or maybe I am. Who knows what will happen? But I've had enough interest from bloggers and other people for the "sense of the House" resolution I asked Congressman Nadler to introduce (see here and here) to take it a little further. If you haven't been following, the idea is to establish an atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide of no more than 350 PPM as the United States' policy goal (see why here and here).

I've decided to produce a working draft of the legislation that I propose should be introduced into the House of Representatives. Four points:

A "sense of the House" resolution is non-binding legislation that expresses, well, the sense of the House. All the same, I think such a resolution calling for 350 PPM would form a good compass point for other legislation.

I'd love for someone to advocate for a piece of concurrent legislation in the Senate. Anyone want to write that and post it and beginning looking for a senator to sponsor it?

If you feel like advocating for this bill with your Congressional representative, please let me know.

I am accepting friendly amendments and corrections! Please leave them in the comments.

Here goes nothing:

110th Congress

2nd Session

H.Res. [number to be determined]

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that United States and international climate change policy must aim within ten years to begin to stabilize atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at no more than 350 PPM or better, depending on advancing science, in order to ensure a global-warming-induced temperature rise of no more than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above the earth's pre-industrial average temperature.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

[Date to be determined but ASAP]

[Names of sponsoring members to be determined] submitted the following resolution which was referred to the [committee to be determined].

RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that United
States and international climate change policy must aim within ten
years to begin to stabilize atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at
no more than 350 PPM or better, depending on advancing science, in
order to ensure a global-warming-induced temperature rise of no more
than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above the earth's pre-industrial average
temperature.

Whereas it is beyond reasonable scientific doubt that increasing human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases cause the average temperature of the planet to rise;

Whereas the best estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many other international, national, governmental and nongovernmental institutions conclude that irreversible changes to the planet will occur if this temperature rise is larger than a maximum of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius;

Whereas a consensus of the world's scientific community concludes that a temperature rise above 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius would cause immense suffering for the populations of the world in general and of the United States in particular;

Whereas Sir Nicholas Stern, head of the United Kingdom's Government Economic Service and Adviser to the UK Government on the economics of climate change and development, has concluded that action to avoid irreversible global warming would cost 1% of planetary GDP but action to mitigate the effects of irreversible climate change if allowed to occur would cost 20 to 40% of planetary GDP;

Whereas, in the case of climate change, policy must be determined not by
that which is considered politically possible but by that which is
scientifically necessary;

Whereas climate change policy needs a basic science "compass point" against which more elaborate climate change legislation may be measured;

Whereas James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a number of other senior American climate scientists have concluded that a prolonged atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at above 350 PPM will bring irreversible global warming and that a reversal of current trends is necessary within ten years;

Whereas evidence is mounting to confirm Hansen's conclusions;

Whereas atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide already stands at 387 PPM and therefore must be urgently addressed and reduced;

Whereas climate science is progressing and policy must be able to adapt should the 350 "compass point" change;

Whereas international negotiations on the successor treaty to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's (UNFCC) Kyoto Protocol have already begun and must be completed by 2012;

Whereas the standards decided upon in this treaty will depend upon the United States' leadership, and the United States must therefore lead the international community to adopt the compass point of 350 PPM atmospheric carbon dioxide;

Whereas climate change is the greatest policy challenge humanity and the United States Government has ever faced and it must rise to this emergency:

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that--

(1) United
States and international climate change policy must aim to begin within ten years to stabilize
atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at no more than 350 PPM or better;

(2) Policy frameworks must be flexible enough to adjust should advancing science suggest a change in the 350 PPM compass point; and

(3) The United States must lead the international community towards substantive action on the goal of 350 PPM atmospheric carbon dioxide within ten years in the current UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations.

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 05, 2008

I dedicate this post to the staff of Just Food, an excellent organization that works to ensure the availability of fresh food in all New York neighborhoods by supporting community gardening and forging connections between communities and local farmers. Read about Just Food here, but more importantly, throw money at them here. I am proud to say that I recently joined JF's advisory board.

Here in New York and in other big cities we have the heat island effect. The lack of vegetation and the black-top roofs mean that extra heat is absorbed so more energy is required to cool buildings.

Another problem, because of all the cement and asphalt surfaces, is that storm water ends up running off the ground and into the sewers, often causing raw sewage to overflow into the waterways out of what are called "combined sewer overflows" (read more here).

This is why I love green roofs--the use of vegetation to cover roofs in cities like New York. They both keep the buildings cooler (and warmer in winter)--substantially reducing energy use--and absorb storm water so it never reaches the sewers. Not to mention reducing outside noise, restoring bird and butterfly habitat, and increasing the life of the roof.

Synergy (or, for long term readers who know my turns of phrase, happier planet, happier people). I love synergies--solutions that solve more than one environmental or social problem.

But listen. If I dig green roofs (pun unintended but credit still deserved), imagine how much more I dig green roofs that also provide vegetables (more synergy). As you know, part of No Impact was also eating only local food (for reasons explained here and here). How much more local can you get than your roof?

But also, growing food on urban roofs may have the potential of turning local food from a hobby of the elite to a lifeline for the urban poor (even more synergy). Because the quality of available food in underprivileged neighborhoods is often appalling (KFC and MacDonalds but no fresh vegetables). Indeed, my friend Kerry Truman has a story on Huffington on urban food justice here.

I'd love to see vegetables growing on roofs all over New York (hint, hint, Jacquie, and you know who you are).

But I'm going on. What I wanted to do here is give you a glimpse of some cool photos by my eco-hero Kate Zidar of the green roof vegetable garden that she built with my other eco-hero and green roof expert Atom Cianfarani. At the bottom of the post, I include some links to do with urban rooftop farming.

And by the way, this roof that Kate and Atom built is on the top of Habana Outpost, a Brooklyn restaurant that works darn hard at sustainability (and is fun as all hell, too!). It's part of the work of the restaurant's associated non-profit, Habana Works.

Below is Atom. She's already laid down a rubber membrane that protects the conventional roof from water and infiltration by plant roots. Then she put down a polypropylene felt-like layer to cushion the membrane from footsteps and to absorb water. Now she's putting down another layer that looks like egg cartons that serves the function of both providing drainage and retaining water. All Atom's materials, with the exception of the membrane, are 100% recycled or reused.

After the drainage layer comes very lightweight "Gaia soil," produced by New York's Gaia Institute. Because it is so light, Atom covers it with burlap. The burlap will, in turn, be covered with compost. When Kate, who's in charge of the gardening, puts in the plants, she'll cut holes in the burlap.

Voila! In this case, the garden supports strawberries and herbs, in part because Kate did not want it to have to require irrigation. But she and Atom are planning another rooftop garden with a more extensive collection of vegetables that will harvest and store rainwater for irrigation.

Now for some cool links:

A story about a vegetable garden on the roof of the Environmental Science building at Trent University featuring some pretty darn cool photos of what a roof can look like.

A really excellent guide for low-cost gardening on roofs using children's plastic wading pools as containers. This method may not retain the same amount of storm water but may be more feasible in low-income neighborhoods.

Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 04, 2008

I have a rule. If a cleric from any religion preaches a sermon that mentions me by name in a positive way, I get a day off from writing long blog posts.

By rights, because Pastor Becca Clark of St Paul's United Methodist Church in Castleton, NY mentions my name about ten times, I ought to have the rest of the summer off. Especially since I don't get to invoke this rule all that often.

But--sigh--there is a world to save. I'll be back at the keyboard tomorrow.

But listen to Pastor Becca's sermon by clicking here. It's about 15 minutes long and my ears start burning about halfway through. If you don't want to listen, read Becca's summary of the sermon on the blog.

PS Meanwhile, if you want a good recap of the debate in the Senate so far of the way-too-weak-but-at-least-we're-finally-talking-about-it climate bill sponsored by Lieberman and Warner, click over to Grist.

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.

June 03, 2008

So, look, I've never even met a Congressman before, let alone tried to convince one of anything or hoped to get one to support any policies. So what do I know when it comes to assessing a lobbying visit?

But listen: I walk into Nadler's office and I sit down and I start by explaining where I'm coming from. I say that thanks to the visitors and commenters on this blog, I know that thousands of Americans are voting to do something dramatic about climate change, not just in the voting booth but with their willingness to change how they live.

I say that I know that polls put climate change about tenth in terms of voters concerns. But I add that the League of Conservation Voters did a study that showed that, of 3,302 questions asked of the Presidential candidates by Sunday morning talk-show hosts, only eight of those questions centered on global warming (that's 0.2%, by the way).

I start to say, "Imagine how concerned voters would be about climate change..."

I'm like, wait, this guy is on the same page as me. He seems sympathetic.

I'm there, by the way, to ask him to sponsor a "Sense of the House Resolution" asserting that the House of Representatives supports a climate change goal of 350 PPM atmospheric carbon dioxide (read why here and here and get more details on my "asks" here). I'm there to ask that he signs and pledges to work towards the adoption of the 1Sky policy platform (including creating 5 million green jobs and a moratorium on building coal plants). And I'm there to ask him to try to persuade House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to sign on to all these goals, too.

But before I get to the reasons for my visit, Nadler starts doing the talking. He has briefing documents on his
desk in front of him and he's looking at them. He already knows what
I'm there to ask him for, because his staff have read my blog.

Nadler tells me--and I'm paraphrasing--that there is no use trying to get Pelosi to sign on to the 350 target. He says that if 350 PPM is truly the necessary climate goal then it is Congressmen Waxman and Markey, of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who need to be convinced. They are the House leaders on climate change. Pelosi and everyone else in the House, Nadler tells me, take their lead from them.

Then, Nadler looks at me and tells me that his staff tells him that 450 PPM is the accepted target for atmospheric carbon dioxide, not 350.

Now, then, if you've never met a Congressman, it's not that easy, I discovered, to contradict him. But, well, what else could I do?

"450 comes from the climate models of the IPCC, Congressman, and that science is old. Since then, our top climate scientist, James Hansen, has revised the figure to 350."

We talked some more and finally Nadler says to me that if I can provide good documentary evidence of the 350 target to his staff (which I am in the process of accomplishing), they would talk to Waxman and Markey's staff and ask them to consider adopting the 350 goal, too.

Then Nadler says the words that make him my hero. He doesn't say we have to satisfy ourselves with what is politically possible. He doesn't say we have to look for compromise. Instead he says that, if 350 is what's scientifically necessary, then that is what we have to aim for.

Then, he looks over the 1Sky Policy Pledge, and without a moment's hesitation, he signs it.

And that is the story of how a Congressman became my hero.

PS Now, it's your turn to visit your own House Representative and press for the 1Sky policy solutions and the 350 goal. Hell, if I can do it, so can anyone.

PPS Thank you, thank you, thank you to the over 1,000 who sent me emails of support. I think the Congressman was truly impressed with the number.

PPPS I'll let you know the winners of the Reverend Billy DVDs soon.

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Colin Beavan (that's me!) is now leading a conversation about finding a happy, helpful life at Colinbeavan.com. If you want to know how people are breaking out and and finding authentic, meaningful lives that help our world, check it out the blog here and sign up to join the conversation here.